Abuk

Also Known As: Dinka of South Sudan; the first woman, wife of the first man Garang, and a free-divinity of the Dinka sky
Region/Culture: East Africa
Mythos: Nilotic Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: She is the first woman, whose hoe or pestle struck the Creator in the low sky and caused him to cut the rope between heaven and earth, and she later became a divinity with care of women, crops and water.
Role in Mythos: Abuk is the person whose one act of wanting more ended the age when people could climb to Divinity, and she is counted among the most important of the Dinka free-divinities.
Relation to Humans: The Dinka trace hunger, labour, sickness and death to her quarrel with the sky, yet they also credit her with the first cultivated grain. As a divinity she looks after women, children, the growth of plants and the supply of water, and like the other free-divinities she can make herself known through sickness.

There was a time when the sky hung so low over Dinka country that a rope ran between it and the ground, and anyone who wanted to could climb up to Divinity. Nobody went hungry and nobody died. Each day Divinity gave the first man and the first woman a single grain of millet, which was all they needed, and forbade them to grow any more. The woman was Abuk. One day she decided that one grain was not enough, took her hoe to break new ground, and on the upswing the handle struck Divinity in the sky.

Divinity was deeply offended. He sent a small blue bird, the atoc, to cut the rope, and the sky drew away to the height it keeps today. From then on people had to work for their food, and they went hungry, fell sick and died. That is the story as Godfrey Lienhardt set it down in Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinka (Oxford, 1961), the classic study of Dinka religion, written from fieldwork among the Western Dinka of Bahr al-Ghazal and above all the Rek, whose language he learned first. He was clear that the creation stories change from one part of Dinka country to another, and they do.

In another telling the tool is a pestle. Here the first people begin in a world of darkness, close to Nhialic, the Creator, whose name means the one above. He gives Garang and Abuk everything they want, along with rules about what they may eat and where they may go. Then Abuk lifts her pestle to pound millet, the pestle knocks against the Creator, and it is Nhialic himself who cuts the rope. The scholar David Ògúngbilé gives this version in the Encyclopedia of Religion (2005), beside a third in which Abuk is not to blame at all: an ancestor called Aruu, Dawn, splits the world in two with an axe because Nhialic will not open it for people to see, and light comes in through the gap.

The making of Abuk has its own small drama. In the account the Temple University scholar Molefi Kete Asante wrote for the Encyclopedia of African Religion (2009), the Creator shapes Abuk and Garang from the rich clay of the Sudan and seals them in a huge pot. When he lifts the lid the man stands there complete. The woman is complete too, but tiny, far smaller than the Creator thought right. So he lowers her into a container of water and leaves her there until she has soaked it up and swelled like a sponge to the size of a grown woman. Only then is he pleased. Asante does not say which Dinka community told it this way, and the water detail should be read as his telling rather than as the whole tradition.

Asante’s Abuk is also cleverer than the one who simply swung too hard. Hungry on her one grain a day, she ground it into a paste to make it last. Then she began setting aside a grain on alternate days and planting it, so that her own field grew. In this version she is the first person ever to cultivate grain, and the hoe that struck the sky was only the next step in a plan that had already worked. The same act makes her the author of both farming and death. A grain a day is a diet only a god would design, and the first woman to improve on it paid for everybody.

After the rope was cut, Abuk did not fade into the past. Lienhardt counts her with Deng, Garang and Macardit among the most important of the free-divinities, the powers of the sky that belong to no single clan and that make themselves known by seizing people. A free-divinity arrives as sickness or as possession; diviners name it, and a sacrifice separates it from the person it has taken. She is the only female divinity of wide standing among the Dinka, and in some parts of the country she is linked with another female power, Ayak, as her mother or as another name for the same divinity.

Her care is practical. Asante lists women and children, fertility, the growth of trees and plants, the yield of the harvest and the supply of water. Dinka women, the keepers of water, carry it up from the rivers for their families, and that daily weight is part of what Abuk looks after. The Dinka represent her by a small snake, which is also said to be her favourite animal. No source gives her a body beyond that, and nobody describes her face.

A newer comparison has taken hold as well. A Dinka-authored entry in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures Supplement notes that educated Dinka tend to treat Deng and Abuk as their Adam and Eve. The comparison is easy to see and not quite right. It was a hoe, not an apple. What Abuk wanted was food, and what she lost was a ladder.

Her power runs through the things she started: the planted field, the water jar and the bodies of women and children. It is a power over growth rather than over the sky, and it cannot reach back up the rope. However much grain she brings out of the ground, she cannot close the distance she opened, and the Dinka pray to the Creator across it to this day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Abuk in Dinka mythology?

Abuk is the first woman in the religion of the Dinka of South Sudan, the wife of the first man, Garang. She is also a divinity who looks after women, children, crops and water. Godfrey Lienhardt, whose 1961 study is the classic record of Dinka religion, counts her among the most important Dinka free-divinities.

What did Abuk do to separate heaven and earth?

Abuk struck the Creator in the sky while working the ground. In Lienhardt’s version she wanted more than the one grain of millet a day she and Garang were given, raised her hoe to plant more, and hit Divinity, who sent a small blue bird called the atoc to cut the rope joining earth and sky. Another version says she struck Nhialic with a pestle while pounding millet.

Why do the Dinka blame Abuk for death?

Before the rope was cut, people could climb to Divinity freely, no one went hungry and no one died. When Divinity withdrew after Abuk struck him, people had to labour for food and began to suffer hunger, sickness and death. The Dinka story therefore traces the hardships of human life to that one moment.

How was Abuk created?

In Molefi Kete Asante’s account, the Creator made Abuk and Garang from the clay of the Sudan and placed them in a large pot. When he opened it, Abuk was much smaller than he wanted, so he put her in water until she swelled to full size. Asante does not name the Dinka community that tells this version.

What is Abuk’s symbol?

Abuk is represented by a small snake, which is also described as her favourite animal. She has no described human appearance in the sources. As a divinity she is associated with women, children, fertility, plants, the harvest and water.